AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Want a look at my travel history?”
“But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why have you never gone back?”
“England is too small for me now.”
“Bullshit.”
He lets the iPad drop on his lap and glares at me. “Getting fluent in cursing, I see.”
“I learned from the best. And you’re not changing the subject. Why have you never gone back to England?”
“I don’t like the people there. That once included you, by the way.”
I ignore his attempts to egg me on. “What about your family?”
“My last words to Mum before I left were, ‘Grow a fucking backbone, Nora.’ Dad died in an accident with his mistress of the month after I told him to go fuck himself. My brother hates me because of all of the above.”
The food gets stuck in my throat. I was completely unaware of this, but I did hear about Benedict Sterling’s death during my first year in university. His gruesome accident was all over the news.
I remember the itch to check on Aunt Nora. She sent me chocolates and food after Mum’s scandal and was the only one out of the community who didn’t treat me as if I were a monster.
When her husband died, I wanted to visit her and be there for her. But the possibility of running into Daniel made me shrink back into my unwelcome university setting faster than a turtle into its shell.
“So you’re estranged from your family?”
“Congratulations on your newfound deduction skills, Sherlock.”
“You…don’t even talk on the phone?”
“Not really.”
“Even to Zach?”
“Especially to him, he speaks to me like a robot ever since he became the head of the family business. And the name is Zachariah.”
That was definitely annoyance in his tone, but I’m not entirely sure of the reason behind it.
“But you guys were so close.”
“Not enough, apparently.” A grim shadow covers his face and I’m not sure if it’s because he hates how much he grew apart from his brother or something else.
“What about…” I clear my throat. “Astrid?”
“What about her?”
“You don’t visit her?”
“She visits me about twice a year and bugs me the rest of it with video calls and random texts about her annoying husband and loud spawns.”
My grip tightens on the fork. I knew he was still close with Astrid. I often heard them talking on the phone, and it was the only time he sounded carefree…happy. The only time his dimples were on display.
Doesn’t hurt any less.
The old, ugly pain has morphed into a knife and it’s currently stabbing at the surface, but I swallow the blade down with its blood.
